I was wife No2 in the King's Harem

Janan Harb is the sort of woman who would not look out of place in the Harrods food hall or any of the Bond Street jewellers favoured by London's Arab population.

Always dressed in immaculate Yves Saint Laurent suits, with her fine olive skin and huge kohl-rimmed almond eyes, she has the unmistakable hauteur of a lady who lunches for a living.

Yet such impressions are deceptive. For although she has, for much of her life, lived in unparalleled luxury, Janan is not just another anonymous wife of a multi-millionaire from the Gulf States.

The daughter of a restaurateur, Janan was born into poverty in Palestine but by the age of 21 she had married the man who would become King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, once the richest man in the world. Hers is, by any standards, an extraordinary tale.

Now permanently based in London, Janan is one of the few 'Westernised' women to experience life inside a harem of the Royal House of Saud. She was party to the opulence and extravagance, her every whim catered for by scores of servants.

But as a Christian, she also paid a terribly high price. Trapped like a canary in a cage, she was not allowed out of the palace walls, was forbidden from having children and had to obey the strict customs of her husband, the future guardian of Islam.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that Janan could never fit in to such a regime and she was eventually ordered to leave the country by the Saudi royal family, who disapproved of her marriage. But they couldn't break the lifelong bond that she and her former husband shared. Throughout her years of exile in America and London, he continued to provide for her until he suffered a stroke ten years ago.

It was then, according to Janan, that his relatives failed to honour Fahd's promise that he would always take care of her. Two years ago, Janan made international headlines when she launched a legal action that, if successful, would have led to the world's largest maintenance settlement.

Those proceedings ended with the King's death last July but last month Janan won the right to take her claim for a £400million share of his £32billion estate to the European Court of Human Rights.

Now she has agreed to speak out for the first time about life inside the House of Saud. Rarely, if ever, has anyone dared talk publicly about the kingdom where secrets are kept safe via generous 'gifts' or barely veiled threats. AT 60, Janan retains the striking features that once made her such a sought-after beauty.

Speaking in a considered, determined, tone, her voice husky from Silk Cut cigarettes, Janan says: 'I spent the first 12 years of my life in Nazareth and then moved to Ramallah in the West Bank. I knew what it was to live in poverty and I knew I wanted more in life.

'Ramallah was too conservative for me, too small. At the first opportunity, I left. It was 1967 and I was 20. The Israelis had just occupied the West Bank and I was part of the exodus of Palestinians. I had just $100 in my pocket and there is film footage of me crossing the temporary bridge into Jordan in my miniskirt. My mother was crying because she might never see me again but I wanted to go. 'My intention was to go to Beirut and study nursing at the American university and then go on to America. I never imagined I would end up in Saudi Arabia. At that time, it was a stone-age country, particularly if you were a girl.'

When Janan arrived in Beirut, she discovered there were no longer any scholarships available, nor could she get a work permit. Instead, she arranged to stay with cousins in Saudi Arabia where she got work, first in a travel agency and then at the Venezuelan embassy, translating from Arabic to English.

Janan had saved nearly enough for her ticket to America when she went to the Christmas party of a prominent local businessman and met Prince Fahd.

She says: 'The minute I walked in, I saw one guy in a Saudi robe, just one, and it was Fahd. He was not king then but obviously was a very well-known prince and very popular in the country.

'I had heard stories of parties in Beirut where girls had been raped and I was scared of having anything to do with the royals. He said he wanted to speak to me and I asked him why. Of course I knew who he was but I didn't want to let him know that.

'He said that he was Fahd Abdul Aziz, that he'd heard about me and then he expressed his regret for everything that had happened back in my home country. I was bold and young and I told him that I blamed Saudi and other Arab countries for not doing more to help.

He calmed me down and just handled me in such a way.

'He was a very elegant man, very considered and respectful - an English gentleman. He told me later he loved England because it was so cultured and he had been at Sandhurst for a while.

'He was a nice height and had beautiful style but I did not think of him in that way. I was 21 and he was a 45-year-old man. It certainly wasn't love at first sight. We had one dance but after that I slipped away.'

The following day as Janan arrived at the modest house in the diplomatic district of Jeddah that she shared with her cousins, there was a black limousine waiting outside.

She says: 'The driver got out and said, "Are you Janan Harb?" When I said yes, he handed me an envelope and a jewellery box. The envelope had money in it, a lot. Then I opened the jewellery box and saw a turquoise and diamond necklace and earrings. I told him to return them to Prince Fahd.

'He said that if he did that he would get into trouble so I asked for the Prince's phone number and I went into the villa and called him. I explained I could not accept his gifts. He said I was a refugee and I should take them which

I found insulting and told him so.

'When I refused to accept them, he asked if he could come over to lunch instead. At first I said no but about an hour later a convoy of cars arrived. There were seven butlers all holding silver platters filled with the most amazing food. There was a whole lamb, platters of peaches, grapes and pomegranates.

'The next day, he came round again. This time he brought a roulette wheel with him. He was the croupier while our neighbours came in and joined us for a game. After that he came every day, from 3pm until 6pm when he had Majlis, the nightly open court where people can ask the royals to help them with their problems.

'Afterwards he would return and stay until midnight or 1am, often bringing his official work with him. Sometimes we would sit and drink tea and talk politics, other times we would play roulette or cards. He taught me how to play gin rummy and poker. It was a lot of fun, we laughed a lot. I think he was quite lonely.'

For three months, the friendship continued in this fashion until Fahd flew her father George to Saudi. She says: 'He had tried to get me to be his mistress but it hadn't worked - we still did not have a physical relationship - and so he decided he would marry me. However, he said it had to be conducted in complete secrecy. I had to convert to Islam and there were to be no children.'

'I knew that I pushed his buttons, that I was fun and young and beautiful but I also really wanted children and wanted, still, to go to America. But by then I had grown to admire him for all that he did to help not just me and my family but others. And I admit I liked the power that I had by association.

'Once people realised the Prince was coming to visit me, there were queues of women and children asking if I could help them, maybe with a working visa or a hospital bed. And Fahd did help them.'

Within days of accepting his offer, Janan was moved into the Al Sharafya Palace, originally built as a guest palace for King Hussein of Jordan. The wedding, in March 1968, was a hurried ceremony within the palace walls with just her father and sister as witnesses. She says: 'We had a wedding dinner with close friends and family but otherwise it had to be kept very quiet. Although the royal family knew what had happened, they did not approve and no one outside the palace was to know.'

Fahd already had one official wife, Anoud, who went on to bear him 11 children. Although the two women knew about one another, Fahd decreed that they would never meet.

Janan was kept as a virtual prisoner, albeit in luxury. Her father, who had separated from her mother, lived in a villa inside the palace walls, as did her sister and brother-in-law. There was also a villa for one of her close friends and her husband but beyond these six people and the staff, which included two personal maids, a butler, two drivers, two gardeners, two handymen and two chefs, she rarely saw anyone else.

SHE says: 'Fahd brought in a Turkish designer who was one of the best in the world. There were red velvet walls, red carpets and satin sofas.

There were eight bedroom suites all with the most magnificent bathrooms.

'Fahd loved black Italian marble bathrooms. There were five living rooms, some with fountains inside, and two drawing rooms. There was a swimming pool and I also had my own cinema built so that I could watch all the latest movies.

'Fahd also loved cars. His first present to me was a strawberry-pink Aston Martin. He also had two Rolls-Royces and two Bentleys.'

But the days sound long and frustratingly dull. She says: 'I would get up early with Fahd - he stayed every night in my palace - and while he went to work I would read. Twice a week I would send to Beirut for international papers and magazines and fresh fruit, which was impossible to get in Saudi then.

'I might sit and have tea with my father or my sister and between 1.30pm and 3pm Fahd would return for lunch. In our culture it is important always to have food on the table so there would be plates and plates of different dishes from lamb to rice pilafs and vine leaves. After lunch, I might have a siesta or sit by the pool and then I would wait for Fahd to return for dinner at 10pm.'

The couple also shared a house in London in Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge, and here Janan was allowed a little more freedom. They were able to go out to restaurants together and would socialise at John Aspinall's private gambling club, the Clermont in Mayfair.

She says: 'Lord Lucan would be there and Jimmy Goldsmith. Then it was very different to how it is now. I would always go in long evening dress, with silk gloves.

'I remember one time John threw Fahd a ''barbarians party''. There were 50 midgets running around and we had to eat all the food with our hands. He loved that. He also loved to dine at Le Caprice, his favourite restaurant. Fahd kept a suite at the Dorchester for official business but in reality he was living in Knightsbridge with me.'

While she loved her husband, the restrictions of their marriage were becoming increasingly difficult to bear. Desperate for a child, she tried to become pregnant, succeeded three times and was forced, on every occasion, to have an abortion.

Then. in 1970, after two years of marriage, Janan was suddenly ordered to leave the kingdom by Fahd's brother. She was given two hours to go and her belongings were forwarded to the Saudi embassy in Beirut. Janan was 23.

She says: 'I did not see Fahd before I left but I did speak to him on the phone. He asked me to go to America - I was not allowed even to stay in the Middle East - it was the worst time of my life. I was devastated and virtually suicidal. I didn't know anyone and had lost my husband.'

The family told her that Fahd had divorced her. She lived in Chicago, where she entered into a disastrous four-month marriage with an American she now refuses to name, and Los Angeles. At this time she also became a model for the department stores Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller. She says: 'I was still going back to

Saudi twice a year and would be smuggled into one of the palaces and we would spend four or five days together. After three years, I phoned and begged Fahd to let me come home. He said yes and I moved back to Beirut.'

It was in Beirut that she married her third husband, a lawyer, Sami Buez. She says: 'I had become Prince Fahd's mistress. I didn't want that and so when I returned to Beirut I married Sami.'

The couple had two daughters, Rania, now 30, and 27-year-old Rawan, but the marriage ended after five years and Janan moved to London. She set up two exercise schools, in London and Beirut, and now studies scientology and markets various anti-ageing products. Until his stroke, she and Fahd spoke on the telephone twice a week.

J ANAN says: 'Once he had become King in 1982, it became more difficult but we always made sure to speak to each other. I realised that the circumstances realistically prevented us from staying together but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a genuine love story.

'I had always supported him in our marriage and obeyed all the rules and in return he always supported me and my family. He educated both girls in Switzerland and made sure we were looked after. He wanted to meet the girls and he asked me to go to Marbella in 1995. But two weeks before we were due to go out, he became ill and never really recovered properly.'

That was the last time Janan Harb spoke to him. It is, for her, a very personal tragedy but one that she is not frightened of making public. She has set up a campaigning website and will take the case to court, either in Europe or America. For her, this fight is not just about the money but about the memory of her former husband.

'It's about justice, about what he would have wanted,' she says.

'My husband was a kind and fair man and this is a betrayal of everything he stood for. I think his family believe I am going to just sit back and be a victim of this injustice but I do not operate on a victim level. I will take this all the way if I have to.'